The present invention generally relates to the article storage field, including portable containers or holders and the method of their use. More specifically, the invention described herein relates to technology for temporary storage, transport, and convenient retrieval of articles for on-site work or hobby application.
Temporarily stored and transported articles, for example, might include implements such as hand tools, power tools, elements and related items. Such articles may further include those of a considerably different configuration, for example, elongated accessory elements such as cable, hose, rope, wire, cord, yarn, and string elements and the like, any of which may well find need for application at a remote work or hobby site.
In a wide variety of vocations and avocations, activities of individuals often involve intermittent need for and use of special tools, implements, utensils, accessories and the like. When not in use, the tools, implements, and so on, must be stored in an organized manner so as to be portable and conveniently accessible. Specific tasks undertaken command specific kinds of tools. For example, while some commonality exists, special implements are employed by carpenters, plumbers, handypersons, tailors or seamstresses, gardeners, stable workers, groomers, and so on. These represent examples only and for simplicity their special tools are hereinafter referred to collectively as articles.
Such articles are called into use only periodically; then placed in temporary storage during indefinite periods of non-use. Storage methods and facilities for these articles of vocation and avocation must be such that they remain handy for ready access, yet unobtrusive and securely preserved. Beyond that, they should be collectively portable as necessary. When the articles to be stored are in varied shapes and sizes, particularly including elongated members of varied lengths as well as a collection of uniquely shaped implements, portable storage is not so easy.
Articles of the type referred to herein may be discrete hand-actuated or hand-held implements, with few or no moving parts. Or they may be complex power tools such as drills, power screw-drivers, electric scissors and sewing machine units. Additionally the articles will include associated elongate items or accessories such as power cords, strings, wires, cables, hoses, leashes, bridles, yarn, measuring tape and such. Examples of power cords would be the well-known drop light power line used occasionally by workers dealing with low-lighting conditions at their work site, as well as cords associated with power tools such as hand drills and saws.
Gardening hobbyists are known to frequently experience the need for temporarily storing work related articles such as soil-working implements, seed packets, shears, clipper, hand-rake or other small hand-manipulated or power-driven implements. At the same time, they may have need for a water hose with attached nozzle, or power cords for certain electrically driven devices. Storing all these items in a conveniently handy manner can be difficult. Sewing and knitting equipment and materials such as needles, yarn, thread spools, scissors and so on, represent yet another hobby-type of environment demanding temporary storage containers for articles such as implements and elongated strands. For the professional gardener or tailor, work article storage obviously poses a challenge of a much greater magnitude.
Carpenters and plumbers similarly require transportable storage of an assortment of tools including collections of threaded and non-threaded fasteners, wrench sets, hammers, measuring tape, pliers, power drills, level, chisels, stud locator, power screwdrivers, and so on. They also find the necessity of transporting power cables of various lengths, including the shorter cable directly associated with a power tool as well as lengthy extension cables needed to access remote power sources. Such articles must be in easy reach of the carpenter and plumber; they should be conveniently organized and easily transported in bulk to the site of intended use.
Transporting, as by cart, truck or automobile, a stored collection of work or hobby related articles of the nature referred to above can be difficult and cumbersome, particularly when the shapes of the articles involved range from discrete implements to complex power tools and elongated cords, hoses and so forth. Invariably, the locations where individuals must apply or utilize the stored items are remote from their typical short-term or long-term storage location. This is true even if the articles are placed or kept within a toolbox or within an automobile trunk, truck bed, wagon or wheelbarrow bed and so forth. Also, there is the risk of breakage, entanglement, or loss.
Even if stored directly adjacent to the site of use (for example) temporary storage in an attic, closet, basement, garage, or shed, the retrieval of the stored items for use or application is not easy. This is especially true if such items, particularly cords and other elongated articles, have been stored in a random manner, and crammed together, disorganized, unsecured or loosely collected. In such instances, the prospective user or worker is likely to discover needed items have become lost, misplaced, damaged, or entangled, due either to their disorganized storage or clumsy transit, or both. This can bring significantly added costs to the consumer and society in general, in terms of time, energy, efficiency and/or necessary re-work.
Carrying out specific tasks of the type mentioned above, for example those of the electrician, plumber, gardener, seamstress or carpenter frequently involves strenuous, back-straining, knee-bruising activities. More specifically, such activities may require a person's capability of reaching higher levels out of normal arm extension range. Other activities may necessitate positioning one's self on bended knee or in uncomfortable bending and squatting positions. When stretching or twisting to trim a tall garden plant, hang pictures, or to apply ornaments and decorative lights, there is always a danger of hurting one's self. The required turning from task to task during work activities often involves stretching and twisting the torso or spine and/or sliding and pivoting on the knees or tip-toes. This hastens exhaustion, risks damage to one's clothing, and poses obvious physical hazards.
Besides the need for organized containers and the comfort aspect just described, the worker and hobbyist commonly face the need for access to electrical power when carrying out tasks with power tools or small appliances. Too often, a work site is found to be remote from any convenient outlets, requiring that extension cords be carried along with all the other items which may prove necessary to completing a particular task at hand. Extension cords stretched from a remote site to a distant power source are frequently left to recline at ground-level, underfoot and subject to damage and water hazard where interconnected to the cord of a hand tool. This, too, poses a physical hazard with serious implications for the user's health and safety.
Various apparatuses and methods have been proposed as solutions to these challenging problems of temporary item storage, preservation, safekeeping, organizing, ease of retrieval and ease of application or placement, power supply issues and user comfort and safety. There are a myriad of suggestions for tool boxes, re-useable decorating kits, sewing, crocheting, and knitting baskets, garden-caddies, freestanding or rotated power cord wrapping frames, hose reels, compartmented crates or storage containers.
Receptacles for storing articles such as tools and implements, and even elongated elements such as cords cables, strings, holiday lights, have been proposed in the prior art. For example, mobile and portable units or caddies designed to carry gardening implements are well known. Also well known are water hose storage containers adapted to retain the hose in a coiled state. Special compartmented boxes are known for the temporary storage of holiday lights and decorations, including posts around which light cords are wrapped. In another known storage container, the light strings are wrapped around frames suspended within a rectangular box.
It is apparent that the prior art in this field includes a wealth of ad hoc, special and general use containers and methods developed with good intentions of achieving or delivering convenient, organized and safe short-term storage of articles. Many are custom made to hold hand tools and related items. Still others are specially designed to accommodate elongated elements such as strings of decorative lights or power cords, or accommodate both the power tool and its associated power supply cord. These offer a variety of user advantages, even in some cases access to resources such as electricity.
Still, there exists considerable room for improvement in the form of a comprehensive method and apparatus affording handy, temporary co-storage, or simultaneous storage, of articles that include both working implements and task-associated elongated elements such as cable, cord, yarn, hose, leash, string, strap or strip elements, and so on. There also is considerable room for improvement in making such storage apparatuses and methods to be accommodating to the human user in a way that can be both safe and comfortable
The shortcomings of the prior art, even in instances where only occasional access and application of stored items, as in the case of sewing tasks, seasonal gardening duties, plumbing emergencies, or decorating for holidays, bring great loss in efficiencies and frustration. Where hobbies are concerned, the lack of easy access to task-related articles, including both implements and associated elongated elements, can have discouraging results.
And, where more serious work is at hand, for example, involving professional electricians, carpenters, tailors, pet or animal groomers, and so on, the absence of easily usable apparatus and methods for co-storing work-related articles and elongated elements brings loss of effectiveness and efficiencies translating to economic costs to consumers and society as a whole.
Thus, it is the objective of the present inventive method and apparatus to address the above-noted shortcomings and present long-awaited improvements. The invention is fully and completely described as follows.